[Suggestion] Give the ESF wing mounts(Rocket Pods & Hornets) to the Valkyrie.

I don't know about you guys but I make kills easily with my dual Burster Max and NS Swarm. Skyguard or Flak Turret can feel like sh*t but I know some players who run it well (feels like aimbot).

I would honestly appreciat it very much if the Valkyrie would just become a solo vehicle, because honestly, the vast majority of players in this game are just dumbsh*t r*tarded when it comes to decent teamplay. They have no idea how to gun in Valkyries. They don't use engies, they don't repair on the seats, they don't aim at what the pilot aims, they don't shoot at the stuff the weapon is good for, etc etc

The Valkyrie is good, but this playerbase is just pathetic.

Wow, this guy hates the Bulldog!

OT: I logged in for the first time this year just to post that if you gave me pilot weapons on the Valkyrie, I'd never pull anything else, ever again. It's already enough fun just switching seats. The fact that you can run 3 different utilities at the same time is OP enough.

ps, miss you, Scrin ;P

I've not read the whole thread so far, but here's my two cents:

Rather than removing the ESF weapons and giving them to the Valkyrie, the ESF weapons need a nerf and the Valkyrie needs to get the current weapon systems.
The ESF weapon nerf should consist mostly of lowered maximum ammo and longer reload times, to cement the role of an attack bomber rather than a hovering overpowered turret. It's beyond ridiculous that the ESF can carry Hornet missiles, which have 150% of the DPS of a Vanguard AP after weapon-specific damage reduction against tanks (and only higher DPS vs other vehicles), and that's before the reload speed certifications kick in of which the Hornet's are double as good as the Vanguards AP canon. Add some drop-bombs that the ESF can throw out and you really have given the ESF a much better division in it's role.
In A2A combat the ESF are currently mainly VTOL fighters, RM and hover fighting dominate the A2A scene and if you don't learn to use either you are simply dead, while you can completely ignore learning almost any fighter-style combat maneuvers. Ideally the VTOL fighting styles stay although preferably as an actual feature rather than an obscure bug they left in, and fighter-style combat maneuvers are made more useful. This would generate a more diverse combat styles where VTOL and high-speed combat is constantly switched between to gain an advantage over the other.

The Valkyrie on the other hand gets a whole different choice of roles. Standard they come equipped with 4 rumble seats, safe fall and squad-spawn. You can change this slot into two rumble seats with side-mounted weapons or the no rumble seats but the current ESF mounted weapons on the side.
Some people have expressed concern about this since the Valkyrie is stronger than the ESF. The Valkyrie is also much less capable of doing all the tight changes and hovering that the ESF is capable off, besides the fact that Valkyries do not have afterburner. The Valkyrie's lack of weapons to combat other aircraft and their lowered capability to fire on targets almost below them would cause them to fly lower to engage targets, which gives ground forces much more options to deal with them. The lack of afterburner also means that there is not instant-escape button, the Valkyrie user must be much more aware of his surroundings to be able to escape when under fire, and cannot hang around as long when things get hairy.
The gunner seat also needs an upgrade, it simply needs 360 degree vision to make it really worthwhile.


What would this do?
ESF become high-speed bombers when doing A2G work. They still have a ton of power, but aren't encouraged to hang around due to the long reload times making them much more exposed, the lowered ammunition pool also makes stragetic bombing more important for the ESF, since randomly firing at targets is more punished with quick trips to reload.
Valkyries can choose between transport, low-altitude attack craft or a medium gun-platform (with the side-mounted rumble turrets). Since they are weak against A2A, ESF would be better suited to clear them out, creating a better balance between A2A and A2G combat craft where both need to be present to be effective, rather than one A2G aircraft being well capable of going A2A as well.

Valkyrie generally has much better hovering than ESFs. Scythes drop down like a sack even when fully upgraded stability, while a Valkyrie doesn't drop one bit. And they also don't need afterburners, because they are meant to fly low and support ground troups. If you need an afterburner in a Valkyrie then you fly them wrong.

Valkyries can have weapons against any target, because of the rumble seats. A well organized crew can switch on the fly from anti-tank, over anti-infantry to anti-air. The thing is that noone in this game makes use of this, since it actually requires some teamplay. And to fire at targets below Valkyries all you have to do is just to drop the nose of the vehicle, which works very well since they have very good hover stability. Also, you actually do not neccesarily have to fly low with Valkyries, you just have to position yourself well, ie. in the near of enough friendly AA and terrain cover like mountains. ESFs have the advantage that they can fly almost whereever they want and still be able to escape, but this doesn't matter much, you just have to know how to fly Valkyries and they work too in what they are good for, but sadly rarely anyone does this.

If the 3 heavies do it wrong one time, the ESF survives and can just go fight in another hex in the 30 secs it takes to fly there. A lib on the other hand - even a solo seat jumper - can stick around and get some kills even with the 3 AA heavies.

On defense a lib. flies up and with 2 tankbuster mags can destroy any sunderer and then be off to the next hex in 45 seconds to fight again. Meanwhile the sunderer has to drive for 2-3 mins. to get back in position. As an aside, it's actually safer for a lib. to go sunderer hunting than an MBT because the MBT has to worry about landmines and it takes an AP MBT longer to destroy the sunderer than it takes a lib.

Against greedy pilots, yes you can get kills.

ESFs are the squishiest thing in the sky and the only time infantry even need nanites or certs to kill them is when they're backed up by an air zerg of flying apocalypse tanks, in which case it's not the ESFs that are the problem.

And no, pulling lockons is never the answer, you only help the ESF when you do. AA heavies with lock-ons...

You have, by default, a rocket launcher that is capable of insta-gibbing an ESF with any damage on it. ESFs are even very helpful in that they like to fly right up to the ground to do their work, well within range of said rocket launcher. Why the hell are you using lock-ons that won't even kill an ESF in 10 whole seconds?

Oh and most carbines will take about 1/3 of an ESF's health in a single magazine. It seriously just takes 3 infantry of any class to look up and shoot the damn thing with their automatic rifle and it's dead in under 3 seconds. But apparently ESFs are protected by S.E.P. shields because the only time people ever think about turning around when they hear one, is after they've been ground pounded. At which point they turn all the way around to the forums...

In short, I would like to thank this thread for stealing brain cells through my eyeballs and squishing them on the concrete with jackbooted stupidity.

Someone is Butt hurt that the kingdom in the clouds is coming under fire.

I agree with pretty much everything here, more or less. I'd -love- an airborne flash, though it would as a rule need to be unarmed, and perhaps be a two seater. Maybe with flash-cloaking and access to scout radar.

I think you're a bit off about how much damage a carbine does to an ESF. Never mind you have to hit it for it to do that kind of damage, and you're probably talking about shooting an ESF at point blank range... carbines lose a lot of their damage output over distance. Hell, I've put 3-4 shells of ARCHER into ESFs and seen them go on their merry way. Also, keep in mind ESF's can with FS upgraded just increase their health pool by 33%, and extinguish fire. As well as flares which renders the critical first AA salvo of missiles completely moot. The default launcher... it cannot insta gib an aircraft because the odds of hitting an ESF with it, especially in novice hands, is basically nil. The average player cannot do it. Heck, the average player can barely hit a stationary tank at ~75m, if it has any cover at all around it or elevation.

The simple truth of this discussion whenever it happens is there are no hard-counters to ESFs/Libs (Libs primarily) that do not remove you entirely from the ground game, while any ESF, with any loadout, can potentially destroy any infantry, or vehicle in the game.

It's a well known fact that mobility and speed (With decent firepower) can easily outmatch armor and massive firepower: It is why that in the real world, we have replaced heavy tanks with MBTs built around these concepts.The ESF is the second most lethal vehicle in this game, for a single player, it has more damage output at your fingertips without reloading than any other weapon in the game, and it can fly, evade rockets with flares, and tank hits better than it's theoretical ground equivalent: the harasser.

I'd say the ground equivalent to ESFs is rather a Lightning, while the Harrasser is much more similar to Valkyries. Also, ESFs may be incredibly good in the right hands, but they are also really difficult to use effectively. Imo, they are the hardest vehicle to use in this game, especially when you consider that the sky is usually just full of BR 100 pilots, which can kill you in a second if you are not careful enough in this thing.

Perhaps it's just me, and I'm just awfully bad at ESFs, but I usually don't have the slightest chance against other ESF pilots when I fly ESF, because it's pretty difficult to handle these things and at the same time do such difficult aiming acrobatics. Flying Valkyries works much better for me.

I feel like i still owe you a reply:

That's the point, the Valkyrie is extremely suited for a ground-support role while flying low. Unlike ESF it doesn't have an instant-escape button mounted on so it would rely much more on flight tactics and capabilities rather than instant-houdini. Also, I don't really see Valkyries hanging with their nose almost to the ground for long. That's of course due to their current lack of advantages in that position, but I thought that the Valkyrie was much less capable of hanging about in positions like that and still escape instantly the moment damage is received.
Even if the Valkyrie is capable of hanging around like that, it's larger frame and less easy escape mechanics make for a better interplay between the ground units and the Valkyrie. With proper changes to ESF the distinction and choice becomes even better, with the Valkyrie becoming a ground support craft and ESF hunting them down, rather than the one-size-fits-all ESF.
Of course I would love it if ESF got their current weapons replaced with things that require strafing runs, such as dropping bombs rather than firing high-accuracy missiles and rockets.

I don't think people don't use it because of "some" teamplay, but because of the total teamplay and skill required. Compared to every other gameplay element it seems to take much more skill to be a good anti-tank platform (without spending a few thousand extra resources combined on C4 and AT mines), and even more to be anti-infantry or even AA.
Even if it was a great team vehicle, what's wrong with a version that can be used by a lower amount of players? A version that has a different role than the current valkyrie? I understand that you think that the Valkyrie has much more power than most players can milk out of it, but it doesn't seem to be a solid reason to stop adding another Valkyrie version with a different role/playstyle?

I can only speak for myself, but I find ESFs take much more skills than Valkyries. With Valkyries you just need some practice and have to know where to position yourself best, what kind of weapons you best use in certain places etc, but with ESFs you really need to have good flight and aiming skills. Handling a Valkyrie is much much easier than an ESF.

The hard part on Valkyries is just finding competent people for it. Striker Valkyries for example are a total beast in the sky, yet you see them very very rarely, because of the organization it requires, not because of the skills. Any noob could fly or sit in Striker Valkyries effectively, but you don't see them, because the "teamplay" in this game is just completely focused on infantry and zerging.

I would love if there was a version of the Valkyrie which would require less teamplay, but I doubt very much that this would ever happen.

Here is a thing that said before: give MAXes acces to it and when you think that would be overpowered
lock their weapons.

Find an outfit that does these things, or create one. Friend every solid gunner you find and try to run with them. It's the same problem with a Harasser, and I'm very familiar with it.

I agree: I came to the conclusion the game is actually pretty balanced if we look at the bigger picture.
The only reason why Air feels OP is players do not spawn anti-aircraft loadouts. The question devs should make is why players do not do that?
The answer is bloody simple: because, unlike AI and AV weapons, AA weapons completely lack flexibility. Flak weapons like Skyguards and Bursters are only effective against air, but they are horrible against everything else. With a Skyguard sometimes one doesn't even manage to kill a footsoldier. And you make yourself very vulnerable to other tanks. Most of times when players pick up their loadout from the vehicle terminal they have no idea which kind of enemy they will have to fight, so they to go for AP or the classic C-75 Viper. It simply grants better chance of survival.
You can see this pretty well if you think of Lightnings loadouts: C-75 Viper is good against infantry but you can also deter light vehicles like Harassers, Flash, Valkyries, etc. AP Shells are very dangerous for vehicles but they can also instakill infantry, and they are good for taking down turrets. The Skyguard... just harms aircraft and that's all. As the aircraft disappears it remains a handicapped version of a tank.

It's a fact: players use AA weapons only when they are actually hammered by aircraft. By the time this happens they are usually already pushed in the spawn room from where they can't manage to counterattack anymore. How many times do we see dual Burster Maxes trying to take down aircraft from inside the spawn rooms?

The way to go here is not to nerf Air. It's to give AA a small buff in those situations where they are not used against flying objects. These weapons will become more common and aircraft's job at smashing ground forces will become harder. Then maybe ESF will start focusing on the other aircraft instead of spending most of the time farming infantry (who cannot offen retaliate) with Airhammer / Light PPA / Banshee.

I already did this. I made an own outfit but noone wants to join, and those who I invited haven't been online for 4 months. I also befriended a lot of people but for Valkyries it's never enough. For Harassers you just need 1 gunner, but for Valkyries you actually need 5 people. Finding a decent gunner is not that hard but making use of the rumble seats too is really difficult.

This is pretty much the whole story, agreed!
Btw it's also pity devs created a bunch of unique weapons that are only for the Valkyrie but they are all pretty lacking.

Another Scrin Anti-ESF thread bump.